


Girls Tell Their Fathers

by rain_sleet_snow



Series: My Family (And Other Dinosaurs) [1]
Category: Primeval
Genre: Coming Out, Father-Daughter Relationship, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-01-31
Updated: 2009-01-31
Packaged: 2018-03-09 21:07:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,385
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3264425
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rain_sleet_snow/pseuds/rain_sleet_snow
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>James Lester’s daughter is growing up.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Girls Tell Their Fathers

**Author's Note:**

  * For [fredbassett](https://archiveofourown.org/users/fredbassett/gifts).



> A belated birthday present for Fred, who wanted to see how Liz came out to her father. The title is from a remark by Georgette Heyer: ‘Girls tell their fathers, and boys tell their mothers’. Since she was very close to her father and had a son she adored, I imagine she was in a position to know! Luka kindly beta’d this.

            The house was dark and quiet when James Lester arrived home. There were no lights in either of the windows that faced onto the respectable Fulham street he lived in, and the curtains were closed in both; Jamie and Eliza were therefore in bed, and his wife Kathy probably was. Nicky, the youngest of his children, had definitely been sent to bed hours ago. Lester had listened to Kathy arguing with Nicky about it in the background of her phone call to him, in between demands to know when he would be home.

 

            He wondered if Kathy had gone to bed, or if she was working in the attic office, which didn’t have a window facing onto the road. When she had hung up on him, she had been angry, snapping at him, Eliza and Nicky indiscriminately. Lester was almost certain he had been addressed as ‘Nicholas’ at least once, but had wisely not raised the matter. He knew Kathy was having a very difficult time at work, and between that, the stress Jamie’s chronic illness was putting on all of them, and his own sundry failings as a father and a husband, she was exhausted. She had always been snappish when exhausted. She had actually broken up with him two separate times during their final exams at university.

 

            He hoped she had gone to bed. She would feel better for a good night’s sleep, and he would feel better for the lack of an argument. Guilt assailed him, and he took extra care to be quiet when opening the front door.

 

            “Dad?” said a small, steady voice in the pitch blackness of the hall, and Lester stumbled on the doormat, fell into the umbrella stand, and nearly dropped his briefcase. With the reflexes of an experienced parent, he caught himself, the umbrella stand and the briefcase before disaster ensued, and closed and locked the front door with perfect calm and no more noise than usual.

 

            “Elizabeth Alison _Lester_ ,” he said, trusting that his voice encompassed his complete and utter disapproval without being too harsh. “What are you doing out of bed?”

 

            He switched on the hall light, and his ten-year-old daughter’s small, serious face appeared, screwed up against the brightness. She was wearing ancient pink pyjamas that left her skinny ankles bare and her brother’s fluffy dressing gown, and she looked tiny and vulnerable and very, very young.

 

            “I wanted to talk to you,” she said, with unassailable logic. “You’re late.”

 

            Lester winced. “I’m sorry, darling. Is Mummy asleep, do you know?”

 

            “Mum went to bed ages ago.”

 

            Surely she was too little to have stopped calling them Daddy and Mummy? Lester quelled various horrible thoughts about children growing up too fast, and worried anew about the impact that Jamie’s illness was having on Eliza. “Oh. Well, can whatever you want to talk to me about wait till the morning?” The weekend, more like. Eliza would have to rush off to school, and he would have to rush off to work.  


            “No,” Eliza said. “I want to talk to you, I don’t want Mum to know.”

 

            Lester blinked at his daughter.  “Eliza?”

 

            Eliza scowled hideously.

 

            “Liz, fine,” Lester said, belatedly remembering that his daughter did not consider Eliza a suitable name for a big girl of nearly eleven, and had latched on to his brother Ralph’s nickname for her as preferable. She and her mother had struck a deal that meant Kathy was permitted to call her Elizabeth, but Lester suspected both that he was not included and that ‘Elizabeth’ was the thin end of a wedge that would leave Kathy referring to her exclusively as ‘Liz’ before the year was out.

 

            He sighed, and tried to burn through the weariness and work-related speculation clouding his mind and find the thread of joy that his daughter had chosen to confide in him, not her mother. They’d always been close, but Lester worried that he spent too much time at work for the children to really know and love him. “Well, come and tell me about it, then.”

 

            Eliza – no, Liz – got up and pattered into the kitchen ahead of him. “Can I have hot chocolate?”

 

            Lester switched off the hall light behind him. “Only if you pinkie promise to brush your teeth extra carefully afterwards.”

 

            The pinkie promise was duly enacted, with a focussed solemnity that never failed to remind Lester of Kathy, and Lester put the kettle on and fetched down the hot chocolate and some Horlicks for himself. Absurd, but it put him out like a light.

 

            When the two mugs were steaming in front of them, Lester sat down at the table and eyed his daughter. “Spill.”

 

            “I like girls,” Eliza – _Liz_! – said, matter-of-factly.

 

            Lester tried to parse a ten-year-old’s logic. “You mean… have you made a new friend?”

 

            “No,” Liz said. “I mean lots of girls at school have boyfriends, but I don’t think I like boys like that? So I kissed Simon in case I was wrong maybe –”

 

            “You kissed Simon?” Lester felt faintly dazed. He recalled Simon – Liz’s best friend, a gap-toothed, green-eyed boy with oodles of charm and a new ‘girlfriend’ every week. “Did Simon get a say in this?”

 

            “Yes, _duh_ ,” Liz said comprehensively. “He _agreed_. And I didn’t like it.”    

 

            “That doesn’t necessarily mean you’re a lesbian, sweetie,” Lester said tentatively. “You might not be – er, ready for… going out with someone, like we talked about, remember, when we talked about periods…”

 

            Liz gave him a withering look.

 

            “Or you just might not like Simon that way?” Lester offered weakly, aware that his ten-year-old was not remotely impressed.

 

            “No,” Liz said, flatly.

 

            “Oh,” Lester said, sat back, blinked, and took several sips of his Horlicks. “Okay, then.”

 

            “But it is okay, right,” Liz said, brown eyes fixed unwaveringly on his. “Because I don’t think Mum will like it.”  


            “I’m sure Mum will be fine with it,” Lester said firmly. “Daniel’s gay, isn’t he? Cousin Daniel? And she doesn’t have a problem with that. They came to Nicky’s christening, do you remember? Maybe you were a bit small…”

 

            Liz looked fundamentally unconvinced. “But I don’t _have_ to tell Mum, right.”

 

            Lester felt a pang of horror. Liz wanted him to keep secrets from Kathy, and there was nothing that could possibly be more destructive at this moment – but he _had_ to say yes. He couldn’t let his daughter down over something so fundamental as this. “No, sweetheart,” he said through numb lips.

 

            Liz looked satisfied.

 

            “Come here and give me a hug,” Lester asked, opening his arms wide, and his daughter slid off her chair and came and climbed onto his lap, sharp elbows everywhere and concrete-like head banging painfully on his chin. She wrapped her arms around his neck, octopus-fashion, and he pressed his face against her hair and breathed in deeply. She smelled like strawberry shampoo and clean small child, and she was almost too big to really fit on his lap.

 

            “There now,” he said after a while, when he thought he might not cry if he opened his mouth. “Drink up your hot chocolate and go to bed. And don’t forget to brush your teeth!”

 

           

            It took another twenty minutes for him to chase Liz into bed, look in on his sons, and brush his teeth, undress and climb into his own bed. His wife was asleep, but stirred and half-woke as he slipped between the sheets and snuggled up to her.

 

            “James,” she said, sleepily.

 

            He kissed her. “Kathy. I’m sorry, my love.”

 

            She smiled faintly. It was enough, for now. “I know.” She yawned. “Did you look in on the kids?”

 

            “Yes. Sound asleep, except for Eliza. Damn it. Liz.”

 

            Kathy all but giggled. “It’s hard to get used to.”

 

            “Says the woman who somehow negotiated ‘Elizabeth’.  Either way, she’s in bed now, and snoozing quite happily.”

 

            “Good,” Kathy said dreamily.

 

            “They grow up so fast,” Lester said rather mournfully, rescuing his pillow from the end of the bed – Kathy, like Nicky and Liz, was a restless sleeper – and wedging it under his head.

 

            “So stick around to see it happen,” Kathy said tartly, fitting herself against him as he turned onto his side and slung an arm across her waist.

 

            “I will,” he said, kissing her again. “I promise.”


End file.
